Fang Yuan

Born in the northern part of China, I went to the southern part for my college study. I received my Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Physics at Nanjing University. Then I continued my study in Nanjing University with the major of Condensed Matter Physics and did research in the field of ferroelectrics. After receiving a Master’s Degree of Science there, I came to the United States to pursue my Ph.D. degree, here, at Northwestern University.

Here my research focuses on the mechanical properties of the bone. To consider its biochemical composition, bone is a composite of a fibrous, organic matrix filled with inorganic calcium compounds. In fact, bone is not a simple, uniform, discontinuously reinforced composite but rather a composite of a very high volume fraction of stiff rods (mineralized collagen fibrils which themselves are nanoparticulate-reinforced structures) glued together by a low volume fraction of non-collagenous proteins. To characterize its microstructure and therefore its unique mechanical properties, I use Finite Element Method to model the bone structure and analyze its stress-strain behavior. My work will be compared with the experimental results which can be gotten by the synchrotron X-ray radiation at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory (cooperating with Anjali Singhal).